News

Krasnodar Officials Gather List of Minority Schoolchildren

(December 12, 2008)

Education officials in the Prikubansky district of the notoriously
xenophobic region of Krasnodar in the south of Russia have asked
teachers for the names and addresses of children whose ancestry stems
from the Caucasus, according to a December 11, 2008 article in the
independent newspaper "Novaya Gazeta." According to the request by
the district's top education official, Zoya Gontar, the lists are
intended as a means of protecting the schoolchildren from racist
violence. Ms. Gontar reportedly wrote that, "incidents of extremism
against people of Caucasian nationality are rising amongst our youth"
and that the police had requested that she draw up the list of
children "on behalf of their security." However, a local police
official denied knowing about initiative.

The Krasnodar region was the site for many years of mass official and
non-official persecution and discrimination against certain migrant
groups, especially the Meskhetian Turks. The persecution and violence
directed against the Meskhetians was so bad that it eventually led to
them being granted refugee status en masse in the US. Whether this
initiative is a well-intentioned attempt by one official to protect
minority children from racist violence, or a sign that local officials
are planning steps to monitor migrants more closely, perhaps for
reasons that do not take their well-being into account, is not yet
clear.